Beastie Victoriana Times at the Chamber

The night of a thousand years was
spent in a thousand rooms,
swirling and disappearing,
reappearing in another form,
thousands later.

Untethered, detached parts, pieces,
drab colours and strange species,
parts of bad news and tricks
of the mind.

Victorian horror,
cats in dresses, red cat's faces
with sad, bold temperaments,
misunderstood.

Birds in flight, ragged
winged, as they were seen,
not as they were. Suspicion,
superstition, Hitchcock
discomfort in quiet rooms.

Take the chamber with its
webby decor,
sit in the creaky chair.
The door handle that comes
away in the hand, the lock
that binds the key.

Watch the film of fright,
as it rolls in the black and white
shadows --
of old stuffed seats and specimens,
and wicked stares.

The boiling insides,
the stiffened stays,
the memory of what was,
a child locked in a room,
and thousand years
ago, a thousand years on,
nothing.

copyright Imogen Crest 2006.